Paint matching headache

[BlueM3Wagon]

I had my front euro bumper painted, hood painted from rock chips and rear bumper painted due to some issues. This is the second time I'm getting it back because I told them the color seemed off and the repairs to the rear bumper were not done well enough. It's still way off in my opinion. But I don't know if I should keep fighting for full respray or just have them blend in the front fenders and rear quarters. The car was painted one year ago after full conversion including rear M3 e90 quarters. I don't know if the first shops paint is off from Deep sea blue or this second shop is the one off. I know the first shop used PPG and the second used R&M. any paint people here able to provide advice?

[roastbeef]

did you have them match it to your gas cap, or did they just open a fresh can and spray it?

[Redd]

Dont have to get into different paint brands. Even using the same brand, a good painter needs to color match by eye before painting. Paint code alone is not enough to ensure color match. More so if different panels are of a different age. And add to that the complexity of matching metallic paint. If your painter didn't do a color match then they didn't do a proper job.

[BlueM3Wagon]

Originally Posted by roastbeef

did you have them match it to your gas cap, or did they just open a fresh can and spray it?

I honestly don't know. The shop manager said they paint matched but the younger guy I talked to who I assume painted it, said there was two different a76 to choose from and he picked the closest match, not sure if paint gets color matched after that or it's a completely custom process.

[BlueM3Wagon]

I'm taking it in for the panels to be blended. Hopefully this is the last painting for this thing!

[jradon]

Good luck and keep us posted.

[omgzirra_exe]

id try to keep with the same brand of paint. there's gonna be some variation regardless even if its same brand. best bet colour spectrophotometer to get exact match ( not many shops have this, its what used to make sure colour is consistent throughout manufacturing process )

it def looks like they went to dark on the colour for sure. wonder what base primer they used? or base layer of paint. almost like they went with a dark grey primer layer then sprayed on the colour so the colour looks darker once sprayed on and dried.

[gtenedio]

sick conversion

[DILL_M3_CAN]

its one of those at first glance you cant tell, but once you notice it, you cant un-see it.

[tsk94]

From my understanding, perfect paint matching is almost impossible when painting a panel individually. Hence why it's so often blended to make the transition smoother and much less apparent. I think you could keep getting the panels repainted over and over again, but it will never match perfectly - that's just how it goes. Any good body shop will probably tell you it needs to be blended for the best possible match and that sounds like the path you may want to go down.

[SAMM3Y]

It might be the right match just shot in the wrong direction. There's a whole process to blending Metallics and I could see a color like that being one of the tricky ones… don't they typically lay down a wet bed of base clear to the blender panels to tack the metallics on to when they do the mister/blend coat? I watch a bit of YouTube so I've signed on as an industry leading expert on the matter…. In all seriousness get a second opinion but you might not like the answer.

[BlueM3Wagon]

Update, got all 4 panels blended and very happy. Car looks incredible up close.

[Ervin87]

Looks great. Blending is always recommended and results speak for themselves.

[Blindside_137]

So much better. Looks fantastic